Historic Charleston Foundation
March 5, 2013: The Historic Rotary Club of Charleston was honored to have Kitty Robinson as the speaker this week. Kitty is the President and CEO of the Historic Charleston Foundation (HCF). Early in her career, Mrs. Robinson worked as a volunteer with Historic Charleston Foundation’s Festival of Houses and Gardens, a position that later evolved into a full-time job as the festival’s director. Mrs. Robinson currently serves or has served in a leadership capacity on more than a dozen civic boards and organizations. From 1994 – 2000, she sat on the city’s Board of Architectural Review. Her professional affiliations include the Charleston Green Committee, the Civic Design Center Board of Directors, the Fort Sumter/Fort Moultrie Trust and a host of organizations involved in the region’s key tourism industry. Mrs. Robinson grew up in Montgomery Alabama and attended Converse College. She moved to Charleston with her husband in 1971.
The HCF was somewhat a result of the ‘Ordinance of 1931.’ This ordinance established the first historic zoning district in the US and the first Board of Architectural Review in Charleston. Established in 1947, the HCF is dedicated to preserving and protecting the architectural, historical, and cultural character of Charleston and its Lowcountry environs, and to educating the public about Charleston’s history and the benefits that are derived from preservation. Frances Edmunds served as the first Executive Director and held that position for nearly 40 years.
The HCF was the first organization in the country to develop the Revolving Fund as a preservation strategy. Nearly 100 houses and properties have been purchased, protected, preserved and resold through the Foundation’s Revolving Fund. On the occasion of the HCF’s 60th anniversary in 2007, the Fund was appropriately and reverently renamed the Edmunds Revolving Fund. The initiation of this fund in 1958, enabled the Foundation to begin the Ansonborough Rehabilitation Project, an extraordinary effort to save a six-block neighborhood bordered by Market, Calhoun, East Bay and Meeting Streets. Through the Revolving Fund, the HCF sought to purchase, stabilize and resell historic properties with protective covenants in Ansonborough where, over a 12-year period, more than 60 structures were rehabilitated. The accomplishment was hailed nationwide, and other preservation programs across the United States modeled local initiatives on the Charleston program. Recently, the Revolving Fund has allowed the HFC to purchase the Gibbes House, Mulberry and Auldbrass Plantations, the Nathaniel Russell House and Drayton Hall.
Other notable accomplishments include the following:
· In 1984, the HCF began an Easements and Covenants program with historic property owners interested in historic preservation. In essence, an easement is a partial interest in a piece of property that takes the form of a set of restrictive covenants attached to a deed. The nascent program accepted eight easements in the early 1980s and has now grown to nearly 400 properties throughout the Lowcountry.
· The Neighborhood Impact Initiative had also been an important preservation program that has combined the efforts of the HCF, the City of Charleston and Habitat for Humanity. Beginning in June 1995 with 33 Bogard Street in Elliottborough and continuing to more recent projects on St. Philip Street, the program has successfully rehabilitated twelve historic properties.
· The HCF also participated in the 1994 Tourism Management Plan, the establishment of the Cooper River and Ashley River Historic Districts and the preservations of the Old Powder Magazine, the McLeod Plantation, the Aiken-Rhett house and the Charles Pinckney house.
· The HCF won the 2008 National Trust Award and has received the Angel Award from the Secretary of State in honor of their fiscal responsibility.
Much of the fundraising comes from the Annual Festival of Homes and Gardens and the Charleston Antiques Show. The HCF also operates two shops and has produced a Tour Guide Manual for the city. It is estimated that more than 10,000 people per day pass through the HCF shop in the Charleston City Market.
Reported by Doug Holmes, Keyway Committee